Memories from the Past
by Rose-Arwen-Padme
Summary: AFTER REUNION IN HEAVEN: Rose comes to Lizzie’s wedding (as a spirit of course, so no one can see or hear her). Jack follows her, and it goes back and forth between fluffiness and seriousness as some important confessions are made.


_Summary:_ Rose comes to Lizzie's wedding (as a ghost of course, so no one can see or hear her). Jack follows her, and it goes back and forth between fluffiness and seriousness.

A/N: The 'Edwardian Period' was the style of clothes that was around during and around 1912.

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**_Memories From the Past_ **

**By Rose-Arwen-Padme**

Her blonde hair was up in an elaborate French twist. Curls, dangling on either side, framed her smiling face. She hadn't needed much makeup, though still she was wearing more than usual. Her white gown floated around her and her veil, now thrown back, did not hide her beautiful grin or sparkling eyes.

Rose watched her granddaughter with pride from a corner. There was no reason too, for she could have stood right in front of Lizzie's face and the bride wouldn't have known at all, but Rose preferred to take in all of the scene around her. The guests, the tables of food, the gorgeous-but-not-overdone decorations, all were perfect for her granddaughter's wedding.

Rose watched with endless joy as Lizzie accepted another dance from the groom, her newly made husband. Rose looked on as he twirled her and spun her elegantly, and saw flickers of her own smile as Lizzie's radiated around the room. It almost came as a shock, seeing how Lizzie looked nothing like Rose did at that age. Lizzie's father, Rose's son, had received his blonde hair from John Calvert, Rose's husband, and then passed it on to Lizzie. When Rose's other children had also not been given her physical characteristics as much as John's she had been deeply saddened for a while. From then on, the fiery red hair of the DeWitt Bukater women had ended, along with some other outward qualities Rose had not been able to pass on to her children. But it seemed as though her smile had only skipped a generation, and was on display now on Lizzie's beaming face. She looked… she looked… she's…

"She's beautiful."

Rose knew the harmonic voice before she even looked for the face it belonged to. Although no one could hear her because she was only there as a spirit, Rose could hear mortals around her. Still, it was no living person nearby that she had overheard. She turned around to face her beloved.

"Jack!" she said with a smile, her automatic happiness that she always felt whenever she saw him flooding her once again. Since they had been reunited for a blissful eternity in heaven, both had silently decided to always appear as they did in their youth, when they met and fell in love on the Titanic. They were that way now, but Jack was dressed in a very nice tuxedo, a direct opposite of how he usually outfitted himself. It was same one he had worn that night at dinner on the Titanic, she noticed with another smile. Rose herself was wearing a white, beaded, sleeveless dress, with white lace gloves that reached past her elbows. It too, was from the Edwardian period.

Then Rose tried to hold back a frown after she got over the shock and surprise she had felt when she saw Jack beside her, watching her. He noticed her furrowed expression, and voiced his concern. "Rose?What is it? What's wrong?"

Rose simply shook her head, paused, the replied. "Nothing."

The only slightly amused gaze she received told her that her lame attempt had not succeeded. "I-I-I, well, I-I just didn't expect to see you here." She lowered her eyes. "It's stupid really."

"You said those words once before, you know," Jack said gently. "In that exact same tone, if I remember right. It means that you're rackin' your brain, trying to come up with somethin' to say, somethin' that sounds right." He took a step towards her. "You don't need to do that with me." Jack offered a grin. "I'm not Cal, you know."

Rose almost burst out laughing at the very thought. "No," she remarked in between gasps of air through her giggles. "No, you don't need to remind me of _that_!"

Jack placed his left hand in her right hand, his eyes, a lighter color of the ocean that had claimed him, sparkling with intensity. "Tell me, Rose."

Rose shrugged, trying to seem casually about it all. "It's just that, well, Jack, I would think Lizzie is a reminder to you."

"A reminder to what?"

"A reminder that I went on… and had children…" she swallowed, trying reluctantly to choke out the words that could inflect the worse pain. "…that I married another man."

Jack raised their tightly clasped hands to his lips and kissed them. Then he firmly placed the side of their grip where her hand was upon his chest. "You mean like I told you to?"

"Jack, you told me I was going to go on and have lots of babies. You left out the part about how I was going to fall in love again to have those babies."

Jack squeezed his eyes shut, hoping she wouldn't see his true feelings through them if she couldn't see them at all. "I was struggling for breath. I just wasn't up to laying out your whole life for you."

It was a pitiful excuse even to him.

"Yeah, right." Looks like Rose thought so too. "We're both bad at lying to each other Jack."

He broke out into the crooked grin she knew so well. "Is that a bad thing?" He smiled more when she also smirked and shook her head. "Yeah, I didn't think so either. We've never needed it before."

"And we will never need it," Rose added quickly. She paused, then continued. "But still, Jack… I mean, watching Lizzie for you…"

"Is not the easiest thing in the world," Jack admitted slowly and meekly. "But you seeing her brings you joy, and so it brings me joy."

"That simple, eh?"

"Yeah. That's love."

Rose leaned up and slowly kissed him, her lips lingering on his deliciously. She pulled back slowly and looked him in the eyes. "Yep, that's love." They kissed sweetly again, and this time instead of pulling away afterwards, Rose turned in his embrace, her back snuggled up against his chest. He tightened his hold around her shoulders and waist, breathing the wonderful smell of her in.

"Funny what things you can still do, what sensations you can still experience, when you're dead," he mused, as if it was a statement in an everyday lighthearted conversation.

"Passed on," Rose replied forcefully. "I prefer that term instead."

"What ever you want, darling." His words could have been mistaken for teasing, but Rose knew that he was being sincere. Rose, in 'living' years, had only been dead two years since she died on the Kelydash that night on the ocean. Still, she wasn't really used to being "dead", even if she was blessed to spend forever and a day with the love of her life. Jack understood this, and respected all of her wishes on the matter.

"She looks so beautiful," Rose said, looking fondly at Lizzie.

"She looks the way you did on your wedding day."

The statement came as a shock to Rose. It had never occurred to her that while she had now joined Jack in looking after loved ones left behind, he had been looking completely, solely after her from the moment he died on the raft to when she passed on in her cabin on the Russian ship. Jack had been there at her wedding to John Calvert.

"I-I thought I felt your presence that day, stronger than any other day before it," she replied, not sure if that was really the right thing to say after his remark.

Jack sighed heavily behind her, his chest momentarily pressing into her back with delighting pressure. "Yeah... I felt a lot of emotions that day as I watched you."

"So did I. I thought about you more that day than you think, Jack," Rose said quietly. "I suppose on some level I was betraying John by thinking only about you so much, but although I never really told him about you, he knew there had been another man in my life before him that had stolen my heat forever. A man he could not replace." She sighed. "He never did, you know. I… I did love him very much, but he was never enough. He was never… you." She held back a sudden tear as she forced a meek laugh through instead. "Then again, no man alive could _ever _have replaced you. Jack Dawson, my word! After meeting you my standards certainly were never the same."

"I wouldn't have had it any other way," Jack replied, trying to control the passion, love, and affection that was pouring through him through an off-hand comment. How could one feel so alive when one was so… dead? Rose heard the three emotions in him anyways, through the rich tone of his voice, and she squeezed his arms around her even tighter.

They stood there for several minutes; time passing them by as they bathed in each others loving presence. Then Jack continued the previous conversation as if they had never paused it.

"Besides, if it had been the other way around, which I thank God it never was, you would have wanted me to move on as well." Jack's voice held a hint of remorse, a hint of sadness, but a hint of truthfulness too.

"Oh, Jack don't even say such a thing!" Rose immediately exclaimed. "Never! I could never imagine you loving anybody else but me. Call me selfish, but that's how I feel."

Jack smiled and said, "It's not selfish, Rose. I couldn't either at first. Geez, if you knew how I was the day you met that John Calvert… you didn't know he was going to be your husband and the father of your children the moment you met him, but _I _did." He paused, trying to calm his voice. "I didn't know dead peop—er, the passed on could have such tempers."

"Your temper is big part of you, Mr. Dawson," Rose said with a teasing smile. "I hardly think you could have entered heaven without."

Jack smiled too. The only time Rose had _ever _actually seen his temper to it's maximum was when he took it out on the steward who had locked them below decks and had refused to let them out of steerage. He had taken one look at a tired, panting, defeated Rose and just _lost_ it. To have gone through all that they had that night and to be stopped by this scrawny guy with a key to a gate? Of course, Rose had never experienced his temper reflected on _her_. Oh, no. Jack would be angry at the entire world and himself long, long before he was ever angry at Rose.

"I should have married you on the ship."

The words almost made Jack fall over from surprise. "Come again?"

Rose grinned slightly. "You heard me. I should have married you on the ship. There was a priest, a church,— "

"An iceberg," Jack put in. "Remember that big chunk of ice that," he lowered the tone of his voice, "punched little holes like Morse Code, dit dit dit!"

"Jack!" Rose almost shouted, and turned around to face him. "You were there with Brock and me with… with… La…. Le…."

"Lewis." Jack said, and pointed across the hall. "See him? He's standing right next to Brock over there."

"Yes!" Rose exclaimed with a happy yell, clapping her gloved hands together as she looked to the furry, large man standing next to the groom. "He certainly didn't give the greatest first impression, but by the end of the story I had mixed in some respect for him with my initial feelings. Jack, you were there?!"

"Every moment," Jack replied, laughing. "I was practically dancing around the room, waiting for you to tell our story. In my excitement I did listen to every word that was said, even by that Lewis fellow."

Rose laughed, but then Jack continued, "But Rose, come on, right after we made love the ice berg hit. I mean,yes, the thought of marriage was in my mind when we started kissing on the deck, but you had just told me you were going to stay with me. I was not about to rush it." Rose's head was low as she looked at the ground, and he used his fingers to raise her chin so her emerald eyes could meet his. "Rose, you had no idea the iceberg was coming. You didn't know the ship was about to sink right underneath you, and… and you didn't know I was going to die."

Roes didn't say anything, only stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Jack tightly, as if she would _never_ let go.

There, _that_ was what she could say to express her feelings. "I never did let go, Jack. I never did let go of my promise."

Jack sighed with contentment. "I know. You lived your life to the fullest, like I, ah, really ordered you to." He paused. "And it makes me love you all the more."

"Let's go home, Jack. I've seen Lizze, seen how happy she is, and now I want to just see you."

"I am home," he replied seriously. "When I'm with you, holding your hand, I'm home."

"Let's go back to the Titanic," she whispered, her eyes staring into his with all the intensity in the world. "Our Titanic."

No words were needed. Jack bent and kissed her, first with the gentleness that he had in the Renault after their lovemaking, then with the building passion they had created on the bow of the ship, the ship that had changed their lives forever.

Then, Jack lovingly took Rose's hand, and they went back to _their _forever, together always, under the seas in their Titanic. And forever in bliss, and always in love, they remained.

Two souls finally reunited.

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Hope you liked the story! Please review! 


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